Large amounts of data are stored in databases. In many cases this data is extremely valuable and would be difficult or even impossible to replace if lost. As a result, many database administrators regularly back up their databases to a second storage medium or even to another geographic location. Database backups may include regular full backups and daily incremental backups. This type of database backup process is typically an integral part of the information technology workflow of an organization.
In many cases, however, it is necessary to have a more frequent record of a database than the daily incremental backups provide. For a more granular record of a database, many database administrators utilize database snapshots. Database snapshots are a feature of some database management systems (“DBMS”) and allow a user to specify a point in time at which to preserve the contents of the database. Because database snapshots are quick to create and require relatively little storage space, they are ideal for creating the fine-grained record of a database desired by database administrators. Database snapshots should not, however, be used to replace the regular full and incremental backups of a database because the original database must be intact for a database snapshot to be restored.
Despite the usefulness of database snapshots, the complexity in creating, deleting, and restoring snapshots generally limits their use only to database administrators having sophisticated knowledge of the operation of the underlying DBMS. As a result, computer users without this sophisticated knowledge cannot create, delete, or restore snapshots of the databases that they work with. Moreover, no DBMS currently provides functionality for restoring a subset of the data within a database snapshot. As a result, it is currently necessary to restore an entire database snapshot even when it is only desirable to restore a small portion of the data contained within a database snapshot.
It is with respect to these considerations and others that the disclosure made herein is presented.